It's hard to know where to start or what I can contribute. If you read Coates on The Atlas tic this will feel familiar in his unfailingly vital way. If you do not read Coates, then you should read that and this. But start with this. It is effectivelyIt's hard to know where to start or what I can contribute. If you read Coates on The Atlas tic this will feel familiar in his unfailingly vital way. If you do not read Coates, then you should read that and this. But start with this. It is effectively a crash course intro the burdens, fears, and jiys of being Black in a nation built upon White Supremacy. Moving and insightful and vital in equal measure. Don't be surprised when you yet this as a gift from me, because everyone who benefits or suffers from white privelege (which is all of us) will have things to grapple with in here....more

“A man, a life - it was barely worth mentioning. The Visigoths had destroyed the Romans, and had themselves been destroyed by the Muslims. Who were destroyed by the Spanish and Portuguese. You did not need Hitler to see that it was not a pleasant story. And yet here she was. Breathing, having these thoughts. The blood that ran through history would fill every river and ocean, but despite all the butchery, here you were.”
―
Philipp Meyer,
The Son

“I'm glad I've been wrong enough to keep in practice. . . You can't avoid it, you've got to learn to handle it. If you only come face to face with your own mistakes once or twice in your life it's bound to be extra painful. I face mine every day--that way they ain't usually much worse than a dry shave.”
―
Larry McMurtry,
Lonesome Dove